AN INQUIRY INTO BILINGUAL LANGUAGE CONTROL

Abstract

THIS THESIS EXAMINED THE HYPOTHESIS THAT BILINGUAL LANGUAGE CONTROL IS SUBSERVED BY EXECUTIVE CONTROL. FIRSTLY, WE TESTED THE BELIEF THAT MANAGING AN EXTRA LANGUAGE BESTOWS A COGNITIVE ADVANTAGE IN EXECUTIVE CONTROL. BILINGUALS (N=12) AND MONOLINGUALS (N=12) PERFORMED A MODIFIED FLANKER TASK (EXPERIMENT 1) AND A SEPARATE GROUP OF BILINGUALS (N=12) AND MONOLINGUALS (N=12) PERFORMED A NOVEL PICTURE-WORD INTERFERENCE TASK (EXPERIMENT 2). SECONDLY, WE EXAMINED WHETHER BEHAVIOURAL PATTERNS KNOWN TO REFLECT EXECUTIVE CONTROL WERE PRESENT IN LANGUAGE SWITCHING BEHAVIOUR. TO DO THIS WE FIRST REMOVED A CUE CONFOUND IN THE CURRENT LANGUAGE SWITCHING PARADIGM; CUE-STIMULUS INTERVAL (CSI) AND RESPONSE-CUE INTERVAL (RCI) WERE ALSO MANIPULATED. UNBALANCED BILINGUALS (N=12) AND BALANCED BILINGUALS (N=12) SWITCHED BETWEEN ENGLISH AND MANDARIN IN THREE EXPERIMENTS (EXPERIMENTS 3A, 3B, AND 4) USING THIS NOVEL EXPERIMENTAL PARADIGM. RESULTS OF ALL THE EXPERIMENTS DID NOT SUPPORT THE MAIN HYPOTHESIS THUS